Tarter: Peoria not well in the wallet?

Saturday

Apr 5, 2014 at 7:00 PM

Steve Tarter of the Journal Star

Money Smart Week started this weekend with programs promoting financial literacy scheduled across central Illinois over the next few days.

To celebrate the subject of financial education, the WalletHub website ((http://wallethub.com/edu/best-cities-to-start-a-business/2281/) decided to crunch some numbers and come up with yet another list of U.S. cities that are good for something. In this case, the measure is “wallet wellness.”

Not sure how they concocted this one but it involved a bunch of financial parameters such as median income, employment stats, etc. In any event, Sioux Falls, S.D., came out on top followed by Bakersfield, Calif., and Lincoln, Neb.

Where was Peoria? I asked the WalletHub people who quickly responded that we were 21st in the nation.

But wait — that was Peoria, Ariz. Peoria, Ill., didn’t make the top 150. Apparently we need some more money smarts in central Illinois. To learn more, check out www.moneysmartweek.org.

Caterpillar and taxes

You have to wonder if we’ll hear the CEO at Caterpillar Inc. talk about taxes any time soon. News was made some years ago when Caterpillar honcho Doug Oberhelman questioned the tax strategy in Illinois.

Caterpillar’s own tax strategy came under the scrutiny of a U.S. Senate committee last week as U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., suggested that the company avoided $2.4 billion in taxes through some fancy accounting efforts that involved a Swiss subsidiary.

The allegation comes under the category of old news in these parts since that information was previously revealed in a suit brought by a former Caterpillar executive who, after blowing the whistle on his employer, settled out of court in 2012.

No word on whether a Swiss subsidiary could help sort out the state’s pension mess.

Oil aboard

Now Big Oil is screwing up the nation’s rail service. So says Bob Dinneen, CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Renewable Fuel Association, who claims “disarray on the rail system in the first quarter of 2014 has forced ethanol producers to significantly curtail output.”

Rail cars needed to ship ethanol are not available, wrote Dinneen in a letter to the Association of American Railroads, because so much rail freight is devoted to oil these days.

Crude oil shipments by train have gone from 9,344 carloads in 2008 to 434,000 carloads in 2013, according to AAR. In addition, rail shipments of industrial sand — needed for fracking — have tripled in that time.

This isn’t the first complaint about traffic problems resulting from so much oil going by rail. Earlier this year, the National Association of Railroad Passengers claimed crude oil shipments were creating disruptions on Amtrak service between Chicago and the West Coast.

CUB fans

Tom and Donna Horning are Washington residents whose donation to the Citizens Utility Board made the utility watchdog’s spring newsletter.

It wasn’t the size of the donation — a $10 check — but the note that accompanied it: “Sorry for the delay but the tornado of 11/17/13 tore up our house and our town.”

“CUB is honored to be in the thoughts of people so generous at such a difficult moment,” said David Kolata, CUB’s executive director.

Steve Tarter is Journal Star business editor. Tarter’s phone number is 686-3260, and his email address is starter@pjstar.com. Follow his blog, Minding Business, on pjstar.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveTarter.